The world’s top chess federation has ruled that transgender women cannot compete in its official events for females until an assessment of gender change is made by its officials.

The world’s top chess federation has ruled that transgender women cannot compete in its official events for females until an assessment of gender change is made by its officials.

  • @[email protected]English
    39•1 year ago

    The reason there’s a women’s league in the first place is so they don’t get harassed by the men (ostensibly).

    So while on the surface, a gendered League is stupid, there are real world reasons for the separation.

    This decision might / maybe / could be an extension of that reasoning. But very likely it’s not, and it’s just more bullshit anti trans policy.

    • donuts
      18•1 year ago

      The best way to prevent harassment is not bigoted segregation by gender, but in fact punishing or banning people who harass others.

      • snooggums
        9•1 year ago

        Yes, but to do that the organization would have to accept that the sexism is wrong and have the motive to do something about it.

    • @[email protected]English
      3•1 year ago

      or they could just like… Not allow harassment.

      Really the game is chess, you shouldnt even need to see your oponent, so it could be all done online.

      Chess was pretty much perfected decades ago - now all the tournaments thrive on is psyching out your opponent, which they’ve made women an easy target by isolating them. No wonder they statistically do worse

    • DessertStorms
      9•1 year ago

      The solution to men harassing women (and generally making them unwelcome, as they do) should not be to segregate women though, it should be to discipline men.
      Which leads me to the real reason why women are segregated (because clearly isn’t about their safety or their inclusion) - because the men involved would have an absolute breakdown if they were beaten by a woman (not a problem exclusive to chess, either).

    • @[email protected]English
      11•1 year ago

      If that’s the reason, I’d imagine trans women would be the most likely to be harassed by the cis men who are harassing cis women.

    • @[email protected]English
      5•1 year ago

      I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what’s going on here. There is an open league and a league restricted to women only.

      Without a women’s league, there are fewer women seen playing, which reinforces the perception that it’s not a sport for women, which creates this feedback loop leading to a smaller pool of women playing chess, thus fewer grand masters who are women. I see value in creating more space for women in chess to create more opportunities for following generations.

      I don’t like excluding trans women. I can imagine an argument that we’re not ready for this until we get to a place where we don’t think to distinguish between trans and cis women. A women’s league in 2023 that a young cis girl is watching that had 3 cis women and 97 trans women, still may look to that young girl like a league for trans women, and not a league for all women that they can see themselves competing in. Personally, I enjoyed watching a marginalized gender eSports competition, and I don’t think the presence of trans women invalidated the impact it could have inspiring young cis girls to pick up gaming.